EFF will soon be launching the SSL Observatory project, an effort to monitor and secure the cryptographic infrastructure of the World Wide Web. There is much work to be done, and we will need the help of many parties to make the HTTPS-encrypted web genuinely trustworthy. To see why, you can read the following letter, which we are sending to Verizon today:

We are writing to request that Verizon investigate the security and privacy implications of the SSL CA certificate (serial number 0x40003f1) that Cybertrust (now a division of Verizon) issued to Etisalat on the 19th of December, 2005, and evaluate whether this certificate should be revoked.

Before joining EFF, Julie litigated patent and copyright cases in Chicago at Loeb & Loeb and Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal. Prior to becoming a lawyer, Julie worked with the Media Coalition in New York and as an assistant editor at the National Journal Group in D.C. She was also an intern at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Welcome Julie!

As the initial furor over the 2009 (in fact delayed until 2010) DMCA rulemaking subsides, a number of questions have been raised about the nature and scope of the exemptions. We’ve gotten a lot of inquiries about two cell-phone related exemptions that EFF championed: one to clarify the legality of cell phone "jailbreaking" — software modifications that liberate iPhones and other handsets to run applications from sources other than those approved by the phone maker – and another to renew a 2006 rule exempting cell phone unlocking so handsets can be used with other telecommunications carriers. Both exemptions were granted.

Thanks again to all of the people who helped make EFF's experience at DEF CON 18 such a smashing success. Even if you couldn't make it to Las Vegas this year, you can still own a piece of the history. EFF is auctioning several items that you won't find anywhere else:

Limited Edition Signed DEF CON Skateboard Deck
Own one of only two DEF CON skateboard decks signed by security luminaries who attended the conference, including the Dark Tangent, Dan Kaminsky, Dead Addict, Moxie Marlinspike, Kevin Mitnick, Joe "Kingpin" Grand, Miss Jackalope, Dual Core, and many, many more! The DEF CON deck artwork is sweet enough on its own, while the autographs make it an extraordinary must-have piece of hacker history.

Last month, we wrote about a New Jersey case in which the former publisher of a magazine and dating website for gay youth had declared bankruptcy. He and his former business partners were fighting over ownership of various business assets of XY Magazine and XY.com, including extensive personal information about more than a million customers. XY's privacy policies, however, had promised customers that their personal information would never be given to anybody.